Failmingo

Just a post updating folks about the situation with Dragon Con, which will soon be upon us! 1. We are currently planning to attend! BUT, as you may have noticed, we're still currently living through a pandemic, and anything could change at any moment. 2. If we make it, our booth and retail experience will likely be overhauled to minimize contact and keep people safe. We don't know yet how any of that will work... details TBA! 3. We promise we will continue closely monitoring convention standards, health reports, and all the variables that might affect the safety of our customers and our staff. Ultimately we will make the best decisions we possibly can, up to and including when we're at the event. We'll try to be as clear and direct as possible in keeping everyone updated, to minimize disappointment or concern. Although there's likely to be SOME disappointment and concern no matter what, since we simply can't guarantee the cozy, familiar experience that we've all gotten used to over the years. In fact, we can't guarantee almost anything! That's literally all we know for now. If you have additional questions, you're welcome to message me and I'll answer as best I can, though "I don't know yet" is likely to be a common refrain. Thanks, everyone!

Lunacy is here, and it brought friends! Tomorrow we are going to blast the world with this video announcement for The Last Unicorn (embedded below). https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/June-2021 Brian sez we're leaving the Lupers up for the moment, so Feb. Lunacy is the only stuff that's coming down soon: https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/February-2021/ Galen and I will begin reviewing the Hierophant stuff tomorrow!

We’ve really done it this time. The RABBIT MOON Lunacy has arrived, and it brought some friends... including our in-depth olfactory exploration of the tarot, after a break of some years. Here’s everything you’ll find in today’s release, which can also all be found lumped together in this link: https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/may-2021/ 🐇 RABBIT MOON perfume and tee, featuring art by Drew Rausch 🕊 The Fool’s Journey: THE HIEROPHANT - eleven perfumes focusing on symbolic aspects and faces of this archetypal figure 🖤 BROOD X: a perfume paying tribute to our temporary insect overlords! 👯Five new DUETS — simple, two-note fragrance blends ✨ CLEANING HOUSE and SEALING SANCTUARY oils by Twilight Alchemy Lab 🐍 A limited quantity of two in-house errors: BLOODY CORRIDOR, and PSNAKE OIL 👑 To mark the occasion of returning to the tarot, we’ve also revived the 2014 Lilith scent THE HIEROPHANT AND THE EMPRESS. ✔️ REMINDER: The Winter 2020/21 perfumes will be coming down within the week! Along with the January Lunacy offerings. Don’t forget them...

Hi ho, hi ho! We aren't sharing this "publicly" yet, but I wanted folks here to be the first to hear it so there will be plenty of time to process your feelings before we start re-releasing The Last Unicorn this summer. In a nutshell, there are going to be some differences. I know everyone wants to recapture the EXACT scent they fell in love with before, but ingredient accessibility over the span of a decade can make that impossible; in certain cases we'll be approximating original formulas using updated components based on what's actually available now, not unlike the "Resurrected" collection a few years back. And in other cases (I don't know which yet!) the formula itself will be tweaked, reflecting areas in which our beloved perfumer has been convinced FOR YEARS that she could do better. It's essentially the same spirit that has inspired us to update the labels, beloved and familiar as the old ones have become. We have grown! And we want to present our best work. So we know there's likely to be a certain element of surprise in this collection, welcome or otherwise, and we wanna be up front about it so the actual release itself isn't too marred by disappointed reactions, and no one ends up feeling tricked. Questions are welcome, I'll answer what I can, when I can! Overall this re-release represents a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes and we're terribly proud of it. Please keep that in mind amidst your unavoidable pangs of nostalgia for the original stuff. We feel them too, but we've simply gotta do what we must in order to keep holding our heads up. Thanks for listening! Back to your previously scheduled screaming.

Here to break the internet with news that our beloved "The Last Unicorn" perfume collaboration with author Peter S. Beagle will FINALLY be returning this summer! Featuring brand new label art by Julie Dillon (@juliedillonart), these fully licensed perfumes will be re-released in small groups until the full set is restored. And we plan to expand the collection as well, formulating new original scents! Please help us spread the word about this occasion, which we hope will serve as a joyous reunion with many beloved characters from the book as well as vintage BPAL scent memories. We'll be sharing more artwork and updates soon, so follow along and stay tuned!

Hello everyone! Spiritus Arcanum got slammed earlier and lost site function for several hours. They're back online, and there's plenty of perfume for everyone! Dropping an update here since I know they were concerned about folks having given up or forgotten to check back. https://www.spiritusarcanum.com/ While I'm here, let's go ahead and share our YouTube review of the four Walpurgisnacht scents below!

As the seers foretold, we've just dropped two months' worth of perfumes in one vast haul. Here's everything you'll find included in the Lab's first-ever Double Lunacy release! https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/march-april-2021/ ++ A LITTLE LUNACY 🐸 FROG MOON - Perfume & Tee Shirt "Named for the awakening of frogs after a long winter, this scent is a springtime chorus of trills and croaks celebrating the beginning of our own slow emergence from the pandemic hibernaculum. A pattering deluge of refreshing, enlivening, bright green notes: green tea, wet green musk, pine moss, fresh patchouli leaf, bamboo leaf, tulsi, pond grasses, and a pinch of wasabi." 🪱 WORM MOON - Perfume & Tee Shirt "This year’s iteration of Worm Moon is a moist, writhing splort of white grapefruit, coconut meat, wet white amber, squishy pink fruits, cistus, and ruddy labdanum protruding through a moondust-dappled mound of white musk, iris absolute, white sandalwood, and ti leaf." Illustrations by Drew Rausch! ++ DUETS BLACK PEPPER & PINK GRAPEFRUIT RICE MILK & MANGO TOMATO & CUCUMBER CINNAMON & LEATHER OSMANTHUS & AGARWOOD BLACK AMBER & SUGAR CANE HONEYSUCKLE & WISTERIA BLUE CYPRESS & HAITIAN VETIVER ORANGE BLOSSOM & DRIFTWOOD SWEET MYRRH & GREEN FIG ++ TWILIGHT ALCHEMY LAB PAX 2021 BOUNCE ***DOWN DATES**** The December Lunacy perfumes will be leaving the site within the week! Last chance for these lovelies: LONG NIGHT MOON TONKA BEAN, BLACK TEA, AND VETIVER BLACK AMBER, OAKMOSS, AND TEREBINTH CYPRESS, EUCALYPTUS, AND BIRCH TAR BEESWAX, AMBER, AND STAR JASMINE WILD FIG, BLACKCURRANT, AND NEROLI SOFT REBOOT Also, Brian has just informed me that Weenies will be coming down during NEXT month's Lunacy!

Witches, prepare to ride! In observance of Walpurgisnacht 2021, BPAL is thrilled to announce a partnership with Spiritus Arcanum, purveyor of wares for the magickal arts. On Friday, April 30th at 3pm Eastern (12pm Pacific) the following limited edition perfume blends will be available for pre-order exclusively via https://spiritusarcanum.com: THE WALPURGISNACHT COLLECTION 🕯️HEXENTANZ Hazy clouds of bonfire smoke and dark, resinous incense envelops the silhouettes of shape-shifting witches dancing ‘round a blazing fire: black incense, woodsmoke, sumac, turmeric, dried ginger, cassia husk, red cedar berries, 7-year aged patchouli, wood moss, and blood-red vegetal musk 🕯️THE MAN IN BLACK The Devil at the Crossroads: well-worn black leather, tobacco absolute, Haitian vetiver, ambrette seed, crushed tonka bean, and a flick of crossroads soil. 🕯️OSCULUM INFAME A scent of seduction, transgression, and danger: crystalized sap, candied red fruits, raw wildflower honey, black amber, and sweet red labdanum. (This scent is vegan because pacts with the devil should be available to everyone regardless of their dietary preferences.) 🕯️THE QUEEN OF MAY An electric howl of dazzling spring blossoms; a rabid cacophony of bright, alluring, dew-splattered wildflowers streaked with lightning-white vegetal musk. An oil of youth, beauty, treachery, and liberation.

Due to popular demand, we've revived this 4/20 perfume inspired by illicit memories from our misspent youth: "Nag champa, patchouli, and weed smoke." An even stankier blend than before, appropriate for 2021. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/in-memoriam/limited-edition-in-memoriam/blacklight-reactive-poster/ DISCLAIMER: Please do not smoke, eat, or huff this oil. Do not rub it on your gums, do not put it on your privates, do not vape it. It is a perfume and meant to be used as such. No funnybusiness! (This perfume contains no actual weed. Zero cannabis. None. Zilch. What do we look like? A dispensary?) (Wait, don't answer that...)

The Fortunes of the Harvest A hymn for increasing fecundity, and to help nurture all the seeds that you plant in the coming year: patchouli, licorice root, tobacco, and sandalwood. In the bottle: a cool, damp, gritty tobacco, like a pouch that's been kept in a farmer's pocket close to the skin. On the skin: Almost immediately becomes warmer and spicier as the patchouli breaks from the pack of notes, in the most inviting way imaginable. I'm not getting a clear bead on the licorice root or sandalwood notes, they are all expertly harmonized with the tobacco in a beautiful earthy chord (so, don't let that licorice note scare you). In the drydown the scent becomes less lively on the skin and more earthbound. The hint of sweetness from the tobacco (and I assume, the licorice) is quite pleasant. I would definitely scent a drawer or closet with this, in addition to wearing on the skin -- it completely reminds me of all the out-of-the-way corners of my grandparent's farmhouse, and the old books, clothes, and relics that gave off an enticing aroma of hard work and age.

Good morning! It seems like most folks saw our announcement about DOUBLE LUNACY, and I wanted to follow that up on the more private channels with an update about the state of our Customer Service, aka Ted P. Barrial, email-slayer extraordinaire, who is also packing most of the orders. By now most BPAL fans have gotten the memo about the urgency of our situation over here, in terms of too much work being done by too few people. But we've also gotten a lot of new customers during the pandemic (yay!) who don't really know anything about what's going on behind the scenes (boo! but not their fault) and have more intense expectations in terms of accessibility and order turnaround. Anyhow, every hour Ted spends answering emails is an hour when X amount of orders don't get shipped out. And bit by bit, week by week, this has contributed to a major slowdown, which is why we're still struggling to complete orders that people made a month (or longer) ago. And this, dear faithful readers, is one factor in the decision to bump Lunacy farther down the road: as sorely as we need the business, we simply can't handle the influx of new orders. I know many of you are already only emailing etc. as a last resort, but it still behooves me to issue a reminder that Pandemic Roolz are still very much in effect, and our labor shortage has got the remaining crew working 6-7 days a week and we're STILL falling further behind. There's not much anyone can do to help, but one way is that if you see anyone grumbling about the turnaround time or about our Customer Service, you can gently (because we want to keep them around!) catch them up on our situation. We are not Amazon. We are not Target. Heck, we're not even BPAL in terms of how things were running a year ago. We are starkly limited in our ability to scratch every itch or see further ahead than this week. If you want to inquire about something but don't want to slow Ted down, you're welcome to email me (tom@blackphoenixalchemylab.com) and I will field the question as best I can. I also check the DM's on Instagram, where we field all kinds of random queries, and you're not bothering anyone there since it's just ME DOING MY WONDERFUL JOB, and I don't think Beth or anyone else gets distracting notifications from that. This message is appended with a lovely photo of Dorothy Parker that we can all deeply relate to, although thankfully I don't think any of us at the Lab are hitting the bottle quite like that. We don't have time! Selling perfume is our drug of choice, and we are REALLY chasing the dragon these days. Thank you for listening!

Kickstarter alert! Including a scent that it’s impossible to acquire any other way. THE DEVIL AND CIRCE “A flutter of leathery wings envelop a gossamer swirl of pomegranate chypre, smoky aged patchouli, pink carnation, rose cognac, ivory-white sandalwood, lilac incense, and clove.”

We've done it again! And by "it," I mean contributed to Sphere + Sundry's war chest of ceremonial implements, with a new oil called DIADEM OF MYRIAD RAYS. Available in very limited quantities, only from S+S! https://sphereandsundry.com/offerings/diadem-of-myriad-rays Helios puts on his diadem of myriad rays and the corselet woven of twelve stars and bound by the belt which athwart the rain-clouds shows for men its many hued bow. – Valerius Flaccus This is an oil of triumph, renewal, and victory. It is a scent radiating with power and life-affirming heat, and its function is to grant success, bestow glory, and lend protection from all that creeps in the shadows. It is an oil that rejoices in the vibrant power of the sun and the joy and pleasure of life itself. This oil can be used in rites to honor Helios and Phoibos Apollon, in Solar rites, or as a perfumed oil to invoke the qualities of this oil in your body, mind, and spirit. Organic blood orange essential oil (Citrus sinensis), bourbon geranium essential oil (Pelargonium x graveolens), organic Italian bergamot essential oil (Citrus aurantium subsp. Bergamia), wild bergamot petals from the TAL garden (Monarda fistulosa), King mandarin essential oil (Citrus reticulata), mimosa olessence (Acacia decurrens), frankincense essential oil and tears (Boswellia carteri and Boswellia sacra), dragon’s blood resin (Daemonorops draco), cinnamon essential oil and bark (Cinnamomum verum), ginger essential oil and root (Zingiber officinale), bay laurel essential oil and bay leaves from the TAL garden (Laurus nobilis), calendula flowers from the TAL garden (Calendula officinalis), cistus essential oil (Cistus ladaniferus), and cassia (Cinnamomum burmanni). PLEASE NOTE: This oil is vegan. Use caution when using this oil, as it contains cinnamon and cassia.

This is the very definition of a small-batch fragrance. Stock will be extremely limited, and when it’s gone it’s gone! Available exclusively from bloodmilk this Friday. Via @bloodmilk on Instagram: 🐚Sea of Grief🐚 In addition to our new mourning strand collection launching this Friday, 3/26, at 3pm EST in our corner of the 🕸 { see previous post }, we’ll also be offering a limited edition of ‘Sea of Grief’, a special perfume oil made by BPALas part of their sister branch, Twilight Alchemy Lab. I asked Beth for a ‘grief balm ‘ and she made a gorgeous oil that can be used in various ways in your personal practices aside from as a perfume. As per Beth: • I have a right to feel my throat choke about this. You take your grief and I mine—see? A balm for the soul, this is an oil that assists in healing the acute lacerations of sorrow and loss that both cut and calcify our hearts. Angelica essential oil and root, carrot seed oil, lavender essential oil and bud, Roman chamomile essential oil and chamomile harvested from the BPAL garden, vetiver root and oil, neroli essential oil, organic Italian bergamot essential oil, and white vegetal musk. Ritually crafted one full lunation. This oil contains solid plant materia.

It's happening again! Our devilishly accurate CLOVE CIGARETTE perfume blend is currently available for pre-order, exclusively via Thorns Clothing. https://www.thornsclothing.com/collections/frontpage/products/thorns-x-black-phoenix-alchemy-lab-clove-cigarette-perfume-oil-1

The headline pretty much says it all! Just passing this along from Brian. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/lilith-2020/

Brian: "It's live. I expect lots of issues." BUT WE DID IT! It's here. And the Lunacy along with it! https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/lupercalia-2021/ https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/shunga-2021/ https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/february-2021/ If this collection was a rare flower, it would be called Lupercalia Dystopia.

I keep reaching for this one, months onward, which continues to shock me because there were others in Ars Inspiratio which were MUCH more interesting to me on paper. But when it's right it's right... right? In the bottle: It stings a little! Frankincense, oudh, labdanum are right there, which meant that it struck me as a touch medicinal in an Old World way, but inviting and intriguing nevertheless. Wet on the skin: Right away this is where the fruit notes and oudh start singing in a kind of high-pitched harmony, commanding my full attention. The tartness is what grabbed me here, tempering the sweetness and highlighting the overall wicked playfulness of the blend, doing sinister, wayward things to the musk. The osmanthus and hint of vanilla round it out and keep the whole thing fairly sophisticated. The sly smile of the figure on the label is the perfect advertisement for this scent: there are darker stirrings rising up from underneath, in the form of the patch and the datura accord, which suggest hidden depths of complete amorality. It's feminine, but edgy -- surely no pushover, this gal. Dry: This palette basically sticks with me, holding relatively stable throughout the whole drydown. It does get a bit softer, until the very end all that's left is this kind of pouting sigh of candied oudh. It's a wonderfully mysterious scent that is truly worthy of the artwork and suggestive of the art of divination itself.

AwoooOOOOOoooo, last call for our WOLF MOON Tee Shirt pre-orders, which will close after today. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/apparel/t-shirts/wolf-moon-2021-tee/ Also leaving the site after today: FALLING LEAVES MOON (perfume blend only!) BLUE MOON BLAUER MOND LUNA AZUL LÁN YUÈLIÀNG ROSE-TINTED MIRROR by Twilight Alchemy Lab And the following Menage products: 🥉 HIMALAYAN WHITE TEA, LEMON PEEL, AND GRASS 🥉 PAPYRUS, CARDAMOM, AND BALSAM 🥉 CEYLON CINNAMON, MYRRH, AND CACAO 🥉 RED MANDARIN, FRENCH LAVENDER, AND JUNIPER 🥉 LEATHER, INDIGO INCENSE, AND RED AMBER When they're gone, they're gone! Gotta make room on the warehouse shelves for all kinds of new treats...

In the past, our February events were an opportunity to host a tampon & pad drive benefiting those in our community who don’t have access to these crucial products. This year, since we can’t gather, we’re simply asking folks to donate to Drive-By Do-Gooders directly: https://www.drivebydogooders.org/ Your V-Day gift of $5 or more (why not set up a recurring donation?) will be devoted to these hygiene products, which remain among the most oft-requested items, as well as warm socks to help those living outdoors fend off the winter chill. DBDG is a local grassroots nonprofit organization that ferries clean water, emergency food supplies, tarps, donated clothing, and other stuff to those living at the margins of Skid Row’s resource supply chain. For more info, or to make your donation, please visit https://drivebydogooders.org.

New Kickstarter alert! The scent DIG was created to accompany this 1909 literacy poster reproduced by Century Guild: "Apple peel, black tea, polished oak, a billow of white linen, and a teetering pile of leatherbound books."

You know we hate to shake things up, but thanks to the way the pandemic is still pandemicking, we need to adjust course on our order-combining policy, effective immediately. We work with customers to combine multiple orders whenever possible, to save them the extra shipping fee(s), though we can't guarantee we'll be able to do so in every instance. Going forward, we will no longer issue refunds for these additional shipping fees: instead, if your orders are combined, you will be issued store credit for the additional shipping charge. The practice of issuing cash refunds requires additional labor which is simply beyond our means at the moment, and we also incur additional expense in the form of processing fees. In the past this has seemed like a small price to pay in service to our customers, especially since we're constantly releasing new products and we don't want to penalize the folks who do the most shopping. We hope the new store credit policy will adequately address that need — and we know it will free things up on the production end, improving our turnaround time on processing orders and Customer Service requests. If you have any questions about how the new policy will be implemented, we will do our best to answer. Thanks very much for rolling with the punches as the Lab continues playing Whack-A-Mole with Covid-imposed issues!

The Wolf Moon has gotten us hungry for MORE PERFUMES, so more thar be. In addition to our usual monthly Lunacy offerings, we've also whipped up a special batch of sea shanty-inspired scents, celebrating the wedding anniversary of our dear founders in high piratical style. ☠️ https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/january-2021/ Here's a recap of everything the drop contains: WOLF MOON "A fable in scent: bone-white sandalwood aged with beeswax and balsam, crushed grass and juniper berries, ambrette seed, and lupine musk." Label and tee design by Drew Rausch! ++ TWILIGHT ALCHEMY LAB CRUISING THROUGH BEDLAM "An oil for tricksters, an oil for gamblers, an oil of survival. It is an oil for David, not Goliath; Cruising Through Bedlam contains mace, nutmeg, cloves, mastic, lemongrass, wild bergamot, dill, caraway, peppermint, star anise, and coffee bean." ++ DUETS Simple, two-note perfumes 👯 MANDARIN AND OSMANTHUS 👯 PINK ROSES AND PINK PEPPERCORN 👯 COFFEE BEAN AND CARAMEL 👯 TOBACCO AND PINE NEEDLE 👯 BLACKCURRANT AND VETIVER 👯 STRAWBERRIES AND HONEYCOMB ++ FIRE DOWN BELOW Surely, the Sea Shanty (Chanty, Chantey) Renaissance is a sign of brighter times ahead! Happy (belated!) 13th Anniversary. https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/limited-edition/fire-down-below/ ☠️ A HUNDRED YEARS AGO ☠️ A-ROVIN’ ☠️ ASLEEP IN THE DEEP ☠️ BONEY WAS A WARRIOR ☠️ GOOD SHIP VENUS ☠️ HANGING JOHNNY ☠️ HAUL ON THE BOWLINE ☠️ LEAVE HER, JOHNNY ☠️ ROLL THE OLD CHARIOT ☠️ ROW BULLIES ROW ☠️ THE WELLERMAN

These won't last long! Just letting you know about this limited run of products from Sphere + Sundry, for which Elizabeth has created the following three magickal oil blends. You may read all about them here: https://sphereandsundry.com/product-category/series/empress/ Queen of the Honeyed Heart Fruitful Mother of Thousands Daughter of Heaven and Earth

Most of you know the Lab has been having fun making Spotify playlists. We'd like to make one made up entirely from fan contributions! Here's how it will work. In this topic, please reply with a song that reminds you of a favorite BPAL perfume. It could be literal, as in same name/title, or suggested by the lyrics, or purely evocative of a mood or aesthetic. Only one entry per person, please! Also, if you try to edit or change your answer, we will probably screw it up. The song must actually be available on Spotify! Most things are, but not everything is. PLEASE include the song title and artist in your response, for easy searching. If two or more people end up suggesting the same song, it will only show up once. That's fine, your inclusion ended up being represented! There's no special consideration for having peed on it first. There are no right answers! As a result, the playlist might end up being a frightening cacophony, but it will be OUR frightening cacophony, hammered into shape by DJ Galen. Technically we can add more songs to any playlist as time goes on, but I'm going to cap it at responses submitted by the end of the week, FRIDAY JAN. 29TH, so that we're not constantly having to check and update. No worries if you miss out, we can always make another one soon! Is all of this clear? You're welcome to write me with questions. Thanks very much for playing along!